Tuesday, October 9, 2007

CH 3: How To Get A Visa and Into Harvard

Chapter Three touched on Triple Convergence, on how the 10 flatteners he discussed in the previous chapter have came together over time and spread rapidly across the world. One of my favorite sections was the one about Chinese Zuppies and some of the arguments they use to try to get a VISA to come to America to go to Yale or Harvard and get a good paying job.I thought it was funny that many Chinese students are using chat rooms to trade on what they think are the best arguments to use when applying for a VISA. Unfortunately, once they find a good line to use: all of them use it the next day when applying which probably gets old and boring after a while with US Embassy Officials.

One of the most popular lines is: "I want to go to America to be a good professor." While this is a good reason in wanting to go to America, I think the best way for foreigners to apply for a VISA is just be honest and tell the officials a creative and unique reason on why they want to move to America. Yes, being a professor and teaching students is a good thing. But you have to think of something that will set you apart from the 1000s of others who are trying to get the same thing. Kinda how you have to set yourself apart in a job interview.

In China, sending your kids to Yale or Harvard is a very big deal. A book written called Harvard Girl Yiting Liu offers scientifically proven methods to get their children into Harvard. I checked on Amazon.com and it looks like the book is out of print. It costs almost $200 on ebay. That’s weird. While Harvard is still prestigious in America, most parents don’t really care where they send their kids. Actually, the cheaper the better.

1 comment:

Nick said...

The Indian Zippies was a favorite part for me, not the Zuppies. It completely reminds me of our Yuppies in the 80's. It kind of reminds me of American Physco, b/c they are all yuppies sort of. Weird I know. Going to a top tier school is still a big deal in America, but youre right it is not as important. College is such a regular commidity to us now I guess that it's more on personal opinion and finances. Also we have a lot more generations that went to different colleges and children want to follow that. These days a great college will help you get a job, but what you really get from it is networking. Its who you know, not what you know these days. Why would a son go far away from home to a challenging expensive college if he is just going to take over a profitable family business?